Unique Hosting Needs of Big Data

There has been a rapid growth of big data in the past few years and that doesn’t look like it is changing anytime soon. In fact, data volumes have gotten to a point where more data has been created in the past three years than in the entire previous history of the human race. So, it’s safe to say, that’s a lot of data!

Research has also shown that 48% of companies asked had invested in big data analytics in 2016 and 25% planned to invest in it in the next two years. Big data is increasingly being used by businesses to identify new sources of revenue and to develop new products and services.

With so many businesses starting to collect and process to harness its benefits, this begs the question, “Where will they store it all?” Read on as we examine the unique hosting needs of big data:

1. A Robust Infrastructure

Big data analytics are quite resource-intensive. The process can often involve searching for relationships and correlations within a growing amount of information and hoping that just maybe this will help your business make better decisions. This can create highly variable workloads which will usually require huge, backend processing power for analysing the data. Few businesses are equipped with the infrastructure to implement their big data strategies through their internal resources alone.

Smaller businesses who would like to capitalise on big data are especially unlikely to be able to process it on their own. For these businesses, cloud hosting provides the ideal platform to begin gathering, analysing, and using big data. The proliferation of big data alongside the growth of cloud adoption is certainly no coincidence.

However, the needs of big data can often stretch beyond the capabilities of the cloud. This is because big data systems and applications have big needs. This means they require scalable I/O pipes to achieve the best performance results and a cloud solution alone isn’t ideal for storing and processing immense quantities of data.

For that reason, hybrid hosting can often be the best approach:

Hybrid solutions harness the power of dedicated hosting and can combine it with the customisability and scalability provided by cloud computing to properly manage big data deployments.

A hybrid approach can allow an organisation to interpret data more quickly and at a reduced cost because of the collaborative benefits of dedicated servers and the cloud.

Hybrid solutions benefit from dedicated server powers for the labour-intensive processes required for big data, such as crunching numbers and analysing the data.

2. Increased Performance

Big data understandably requires high-CPU, high-memory and high- capacity. It also is demanding in terms of data rendering and processing. Again, this is where a hybrid solution can meet the unique hosting needs of big data. Whilst the dedicated server handles the heavy lifting, the cloud provides the flexibility and fast deploy-ability needed to handle performance. It also enables businesses to stipulate and specify jobs for various storage/computing needs, which is a critical requirement for progressing the performance of big data hosting platforms.

Efficiency is also critical when it comes to big data hosting. The hosting platform needs to be able to handle high-performance needs and the complex, vast processing requirements of big data while also avoiding risks, such as shared I/O, which could slow down performance.

A hybrid cloud hosting solution can also meet the other performance needs of big data, such as scalability. The scalability of the cloud allows a business to meet sudden or unexpected spikes in processing requirements for their big data applications. It also gives a more assured, reliable performance as the consistency of dedicated server performance and the customisability of a hybrid approach mean you can adjust your requirements to match your business growth.

3. Additional Security

Data privacy and security is already a top priority and is becoming progressively important when it comes to big data and dedicated or hybrid hosting can often help alleviate some of the potential compliance issues that may arise from big data storage.

These risks are increasingly prevalent in growing environments, as security protection may struggle to keep up with the pace. Expert hosting providers will be able to tackle these issues as they deploy sophisticated and comprehensive security measures to minimise and eliminate infrastructure vulnerabilities.

At such a large scale, it’s even more important to protect data from potential loss or corruption and to recover quickly from potential disasters. This makes it imperative for businesses engaging in big data analysis to create solid backup and disaster recovery plans to safeguard their data storage.

When it comes to choosing hosting solutions, many cloud security procedures can be better than enterprise data centres and will be adept at meeting compliance regulations. Credible hosting providers will also help businesses comply with data sovereignty in the cloud also.

4. Choosing the right hosting solution

Without a robust and reliable hosting platform, a business is unlikely to have the infrastructure to sustain the necessary power, storage and memory requirements for big data applications and this could result in system failure or data loss.

With increased competition, this is something businesses simply can’t afford. This is why it is essential for businesses working with big data to make informed, smart decisions on their choice of hosting architecture and finding the right solution for their individual business requirements. As mentioned above, some hosting platforms are better suited for handling big data applications than others.

Conclusion

It could be argued that in many ways the rise of the cloud and big data are interconnected. With the wide array of scalable storage and cloud approaches available to businesses, they can now be well-equipped to manage whichever analytical challenge they choose to take on when it comes to big data.

As change and the ability to scale up or down are imperative when it comes to big data, choosing the right hosting provider for your needs is the key to making your big data ventures a success.

At Veber, we are experts in helping businesses meet their big data goals and we can ensure you find the right solutions for your present and future requirements. Get in touch today to find out how we can help you start using big data to your advantage.